*Prompted by Tipsy's thread "Lets be honest, it's not the drinking that makes us miserable..."
Rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. Those who do not recover are people who cannot or will not completely give themselves to this simple program, usually men and women who are constitutionally incapable of being honest with themselves. There are such unfortunates. They are not at fault; they seem to have been born that way. They are naturally incapable of grasping and developing a manner of living which demands rigorous honesty. Their chances are less than average. There are those, too, who suffer from grave emotional and mental disorders, but many of them do recover if they have the capacity to be honest.
Our stories disclose in a general way what we used to be like, what happened, and what we are like now. If you have decided you want what we have and are willing to go to any length to get it - then you are ready to take certain steps.
At some of these we balked. We thought we could find an easier, softer way. But we could not. With all the earnestness at our command, we beg of you to be fearless and thorough from the very start. Some of us have tried to hold on to our old ideas and the result was nil until we let go absolutely.
Remember that we deal with alcohol - cunning, baffling, powerful! Without help it is too much for us. But there is One who has all power- that One is God. May you find Him now!
Half measures availed us nothing. We stood at the turning point. We asked His protection and care with complete abandon.
There it is. You can try and twist this, and shuffle that, or test out a trick here or there, but if you're alcoholic then you're just fooling yourself. I know. I did it for years. I tried everything so that I could drink like a normal person - only drink beer, don't mix drinks, don't drink until 5pm, don't drink on weeknights, drink water between each drink, don't drink in 'shouts', don't eat salty food while drinking, etc etc and any or all of them mixed together. And not one of them worked. It got me every time, and every time it hurt me a bit more than the last time. So I'd get up and try another trick and get beaten up all over again.
Until that day came that I didn't want to get up again. I didn't know it then but that was Step One. Understanding I couldn't win and not wanting to try it anymore. And then there was that passage: follow that or drink again. That's the choice. No more shortcuts and tricks. No more whistling in the dark and bullshitting myself that I was doing OK. Just surrender, faith and freedom.
That's it. It isn't easy but it is simple, and following the suggestions will save the alcoholic from so much pain and grief.
"Selfishness - self-centeredness! That, we think, is the root of our troubles. Driven by a hundred forms of fear, self-delusion, self-seeking, and self-pity, we step on the toes of our fellows and they retaliate. Sometimes they hurt us, seemingly without provocation, but we invariably find that at some time in the past we have made decisions based on self which later placed us in a position to be hurt.
So our troubles, we think, are basically of our own making. They arise out of ourselves, and the alcoholic is an extreme example of self-will run riot, though he usually doesn't think so. Above everything, we alcoholics must be rid of this selfishness. We must, or it kills us! God makes that possible. And there often seems no way of entirely getting rid of self without His aid. Many of us had moral and philosophical convictions galore, but we could not live up to them even though we would have liked to. Neither could we reduce our self-centeredness much by wishing or trying on our own power. We had to have God's help."
Interesting that the third step prayer does not say "relieve me from the bondage of alcohol"
Thanks Frodo and everyone else for the great messages, I had to beat my head against the wall for awhile also, until I was ready to go to any lengths....
Tipsy always get us thinking, the alcohol was just a symptom.....
Though our decision was a vital and crucial step(#3), it could have little permanent effect unless at once followed by a strenuous effort to face, and to be rid of, the things in ourselves which had been blocking us. Our liquor was but a symptom. So we had to get down to causes and conditions.
__________________
Rob
"There ain't no Coupe DeVille hiding in the bottom of a Cracker Jack Box."
Besides a seeming inability to accept much on faith, we often found ourselves handicapped by obstinacy, sensitiveness, and unreasoning prejudice. Many of us have been so touchy that even casual reference to spiritual things made us bristle with antagonism. This sort of thinking had to be abandoned. Though some of us resisted, we found no great difficulty in casting aside such feelings. Faced with alcoholic destruction, we soon became as open minded on spiritual matters as we had tried to be on other questions. In this respect alcohol was a great persuader. It finally beat us into a state of reasonableness. Sometimes this was a tedious process; we hope no one else will be prejudiced for as long as some of us were.
BB pgs 47-48
I know for myself...I had to be beaten to that state of reasonableness...I was as openminded and willing as I could get...It was a tedious process for me...I tried right up to the point....Death was my last option. I got busy. From what I've seen in my short time in AA...Being at that place...Beaten mentally, physically and spiritually.....Tends to produce the best results.
